The club finished in third place and will have home-court advantage in the playoffs for the second year running
Monaco accomplished two goals with win over Bayern
When it’s all said and done, AS Monaco will not worry about nearly blowing a 24-point lead in its regular season finale. Mike James and co. will only see the team’s win over FC Bayern Munich as fulfilling two season goals including locking up home-court advantage for the playoffs.
Monaco fended off Bayern’s comeback for an 89-85 victory to secure home-court advantage with a 23-11 record. It was the second season in a row that Monaco earned the right to start its playoff series at home.
“It’s always good to clinch home court. That was one of our goals. That is one goal checked off,” said Mike James, who scored 17 points, including 6 free throws in the final 107 seconds.
“We had a better record than last year too. So that is another goal we wanted. So we are just happy to get both of those things done and hopefully, we can accomplish some more.”
Monaco finished the season with 12 wins in its last 13 games for the 23-11 record - which was two more wins than last season’s mark of 21-13.
“We had an amazing regular season and achieved at least the third spot. We are happy about that and we should be happy with this,” said Monaco head coach Sasa Obradovic.
“Twenty-three wins this season - two more than last year - that is amazing in EuroLeague with all these big teams. We are still young. This is a great achievement. But the satisfaction of this achievement will only be for today because we know that the playoffs are completely different,” the coach said.
Obradovic is confident that his team will go into its playoff series differently compared to last season when Monaco fought past Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv 3-2 to reach the Final Four for the first time.
“Last year’s achievement was the first time ever, so I think this year I think we will have an easier approach to it mentally,” the coach said.
“This is two years in a row being top four. It’s something to be proud of and happy. But we know we have a long way to go,” added Alpha Diallo, who paced Monaco with 20 points.
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Monaco knows it cannot play like it did against Bayern in the playoffs if it wants to reach the Final Four again.
“We took our foot off the gas and stopped taking it seriously. We stopped paying attention to the details and just let them kind of play how they wanted. It was a totally different feeling to how we played in the first half. It happens. I’m glad we were able to react and still get the win and clinch home court,” said James.
Two season goals are accomplished. Now Monaco could move onto a third mission it hopes to complete - getting to back-to-back Final Fours.